Marginal Syllabus at 2018 NCTE Annual Convention

The Marginal Syllabus is excited to participate in next week’s 2018 NCTE Annual Convention in Houston, Texas (#NCTE18). Members of the Marginal Syllabus team who will be attending and presenting include:

Christina Cantrill, National Writing Project

Jeremy Dean, Hypothesis

Joe Dillon, Aurora Public Schools

Remi Kalir, University of Colorado Denver

In addition, we’re excited to be in Houston with NCTE staff who are helping to lead the 2018-19 syllabus (thank you!), many regular Marginal Syllabus participants, as well as some partner authors featured in the 2016-17 syllabus and 2017-18 syllabus.

The current Marginal Syllabus, “Literacy, Equity + Remarkable Notes = LEARN,” features eight texts from 19 partner authors that appear in five different NCTE journals. Learn more about LEARN and view this year’s full syllabus.

Hallway conversations are a meaningful aspect of any conference. Notably, these exchanges are similar to the dialogues we facilitate in the Marginal Syllabus – informal and professionally relevant, sometimes quite short and sometimes rather long, both spontaneous and familiar, and located in the literal margins of more formal spaces (whether texts or convention centers).

Join Jeremy, Remi, and regular Marginal Syllabus participant Andrea Zellner for an impromptu hallway conversation and annotation activity related to this month’s Marginal Syllabus text “Electing to Heal” by partner authors Antero Garcia and Elizabeth Dutro. “Electing to Heal” was written after the 2016 presidential election in response to educators’ concerns about teaching in the wake of a campaign that threatened violence and stoked fear in marginalized communities. In their article, Garcia and Dutro explore the need for English teachers to respond to contemporary politics and support students in testifying about the impact of vitriolic rhetoric and xenophobic policies. Read and annotate the article here and, if attending NCTE, join us in the hallway to share your thoughts, ask questions, and grow the conversation.

The exact location of this spontaneous hallway conversation and annotation activity within the George R. Brown Convention Center is TBD (likely an open lounge area), so follow #MarginalSyllabus on Twitter for up-to-date information. Swing by anytime Saturday afternoon!

How can open web annotation support educator professional development about educational equity? This panel presentation featuring Christina, Jeremy, Joe (joining virtually from Colorado), and Remi will engage this guiding question by discussing:

Background about the Marginal Syllabus as an openly networked and equity-oriented professional learning initiative supported by multiple organizational partners and educator stakeholders;

Information about open and collaboration web annotation, with detail about how Hypothesis web annotation supports educator voice, agency, and learning;

Educator experiences participating in the Marginal Syllabus as a “geeky book club” that supports critical inquiry across sociopolitical texts and contexts;

Research updates about educator participation and learning in Marginal Syllabus conversations; and

How to contribute to this month’s annotation conversation about “Electing to Heal” through a guided and hands-on annotation activity.

If you have connected with the Marginal Syllabus in any way over the past few years – as a participant, as a partner author, as a member of a partner organization – please join us for this session so we can hear from your experience and perspective, too. And if you’re learning about the Marginal Syllabus for the first time, this will be a great session to learn about all aspects of the project. Please join us for this interactive and participatory session on Sunday morning!

Finally, if you’re not attending NCTE in Houston and would like to connect with the Marginal Syllabus, please Contact Remi with questions and comments.